Welcome to the Pilates Central February news. Pilates Central sends out a newsletter at least once a month about the world of Pilates.

February Highlights:

• Private Pilates lessons
• Pilates with Styles
• Bowled over by Pilates
• On yer bike
• Pretty in Pink

Private Pilates Lessons

We now have a private studio for Pilates lessons. It is a tranquil space full of light and overlooking the rooftops of Islington. Enjoy private lessons with one of our teachers and accelerate your Pilates practice. To book call the studio. More about the private studio. 

Pilates with Styles

Harry Styles might have won four Brit awards, but he surely deserves an additional trophy for promoting Pilates. A recent video of Harry doing Reformer Pilates went viral. Harry was wearing matching lime green top and shorts, white socks and a black and white baseball cap as he held a bar above his head and worked on his core and proved he could move in more than one direction.

The video inspired a huge amount of TikTok memes, fans editing Harry’s Pilates workout to show him going down a slide, hanging from a chandelier, on a highwire ride over the ocean, as a cheerleader being thrown in the air on a roller coaster, swinging through the rainforest, putting his hand up in class, and as Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing.

Styles has been doing Pilates since his One Direction days, after he had back problems in 2013. Harry’s session has even inspired the January issue of GQ to explain why TikTok is “going mad” for Pilates: “Sometimes it feels like everything we do is at the behest of one Harold Edward Styles. Get into nail polish and pearl necklaces? OK no problem…

“The latest Styles style, however, might actually be good for you. Harry – he of the preternaturally toned abs – has got into Reformer Pilates. Because it’s Harry’s world and we’re all just living in it, that means it’s time to take a deep dive into Reformer Pilates to see if you too, could live life like Harry at a gym near you.” Surely a Sign of the Times that Pilates is well and truly Styles-ish.

Bowled over by Pilates

Pilates is helping England fast bowler Jofra Archer recover from a series of back and elbow injuries. The Times reports that Archer, who was a key figure in England’s 2019 World Cup triumph but was then out of the England picture for 22 months, has been working with Pilates teacher Anaya Grover, who was a fast bowler herself, near his home in Sussex. Grover, who runs Men Do Pilates and has worked with several Sussex cricketers, told the Times: “Everyone wants the biceps, the glutes, the quads, but the smaller, stabilising muscles are so important to keeping you finely tuned, future-proofing and preventing injury.”

Anaya Grover thinks that many injuries begin with youth sport: “If you put powerful repetitive movements into a teenage boy, because they’re still growing, without stability there, you have a potential eruption of issues. It’s often the really talented people who are more likely to pick up injuries because they play as much as possible when they’re younger and their bodies may not be stable enough at those younger ages. In grass-roots sport, I think we should be building in conditioning at a younger age. When I think back to my injury, I wish I’d had Pilates back then.”

Grover says that Archer, 27, has been “really diligent” with his Pilates work and he recently played for England again against South Africa and took six wickets in the third one-day international. Archer told the Times: “It’s just been good to play cricket and not actually have to worry if my body’s going to give way. I think that’s the most important tick for me so far.”

On yer bike

Pilates can be great for cyclists, says the latest issue of Cyclist magazine, listing “Six moves to make you a stronger rider.” Hannah Attenburrow, a former elite racer who is now a cycling coach and Pilates instructor at Beyond the Studio in Chichester, told the magazine: “As cyclists we’re always concerned about our legs as the driving force, but it’s your trunk that stabilises you on the bike, so forgetting about your core and back muscles can lead to injuries.

“Pilates keeps you strong and in a good position on the bike. It helps with correct posture and uses functional movement patterns to maintain flexibility.”

She concentrates on the problem areas for cyclists of hips, backs and hamstrings. The mat exercises Attenburrow recommends are the shoulder bridge (“a fantastic move for cyclists”), the dart (“this reduces the chance of neck strain when you spend long periods in the saddle”), the clam (“helps pedalling efficiency and reduces the possibility of hamstring strain and hip pain”), swimming and curl up (“stabilises core muscles, which help with your position on the bike”), the back stretch (“to release tension in the spinal column”) and the hamstring stretch (“a problem area for us cyclists.”) All good reasons to keep pedalling Pilates.

Pretty in pink

Stuck for something to wear to your Pilates class? Kourtney Kardashian solved the problem with an Instagram video captioned “Pilates in Pyjamas.” Or as the Sun headline put it: “Kourtney put her Pilates exercise routine on display in a body-hugging pink onesie.” Her onesie by SKIMS was Valentine’s themed with hearts on it and also backless, highlighting, “her petite yet shapely frame.”

The Poosh founder was seen, “holding onto metal bars in the video, positioning her feet under a set of metal bars as she held onto separate ones and elongated her body.” The video of her on a “Pilates Cadillac” at her home studio, was shot by her ten-year-old daughter Penelope. It saw her hanging horizontally from a pair of bars, with, according to the Daily Mail, “her raven hair flowing freely.” Hello! described her pyjama Poosh-ups in gushing terms as, “Kourtney rocks sexy SKIMS PJs for jaw-dropping Pilates workout.”

Interestingly the time posted on the video showed the mum-of-three was exercising at 11.14am, perhaps a little late not to have got dressed, though that won’t worry her 211 million followers. Should any clients at Pilates Central start to rock up for jaw-dropping workouts in their PJs we’ll know she’s started a thing.

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The Pilates Central Team